Cholera outbreak blamed on Mugabe sanitation policy

FRANCIS BINGANDADI
Correspondent | Friday December 12, 2008 00:00

Following the March 29 elections, which Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) is believed to have won, water and sewerage reticulation functions were wrestled from MDC-dominated municipalities and concentrated in the hands of the incapacitated and dysfunctional Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA).

The city of Harare, the epicentre of the cholera epidemic, draws its water for domestic, industrial and other uses from Lake Chivero or Lake Mcllwaine, so named after the late Sir Robert Mcllwaine, a former judge of the Zimbabwe High Court and soil and water conservationist.

It was condemned in 1972 by the then Rhodesian regime of Ian Smith because industrial waste and other chemical and solid pollutants that flow into it from the river system heavily polluted it.

The lake was poorly located downstream of the Hunyani catchment area and collects the effluent before it is taken for purification.
Mzime Regina Ndebele and Christopher H. D. Magadza of the Department of Biological Sciences, University of Zimbabwe, have noted that the 'Blooms of blue-green algae have been a problem in the lake for many years and concern has been expressed about the toxins produced by Microcystis'.

The concentrations of the toxin, microcystin-LR, produced in cultures of Microcystis aeruginosa from Lake Chivero, were investigated from March and April 2003. Microcystin-LR was found in algal cells cultured from the lake water.

These concentrations are the highest recorded to date for the lake, raising concerns about the possible effects of the toxin on the health of people who are drinking the water.

Nineteen years after independence, Mugabe's government decided to repeal the Water Act of 1976 replaced it by the Water Act of 1998 (Chapter 20:24), which, however came into force in January 2000.

The major weakness, which necessitated the revision of the Water Act of 1976 were mainly political in definition as the environmental safety, health, and water and sewage administrative and management obligations enshrined in the old Act were overlooked:
The major driver for repealing the Water Act of 1976 was the politically motivated interpretation of the phenomenon of holding  'water right' in the old Act to mean that water right holders who were mainly whites were only guaranteed access to water eternally and could not be compromised or revised under different hydrological situations.
ZINWA was also mandated to supply water to most local authorities in the country and also create a groundwater database for the country. Through the new water Act of 1998, one of its major functions is to control and monitor all water pollution impacts on any riverine system at catchment and sub-catchment level.

The new Act introduced the permit system valid for a defined duration effectively replacing the water right system in principle also guaranteeing a wider stakeholder participation as management of all ground and surface water is now done at river catchment level.

It also introduced the Polluter Pays Principle meant to make polluters pay but this development effectively made it practically impossible for Zimbabweans to enjoy better water quality as the polluter in this case is the ZINWA and the policeman is ZINWA.
Despite failing to monitor waste discharge and promote catchment protection, ZINWA has vigorously pursued the collection of water rates and fees from water users underground or surface water users.

Observers have charged that Mugabe's government has been using ZINWA as a fund- raising project for his party to remain in power. At times water users would be surprised with steep water bills even at times when ZINWA would have provided very erratic water supplies or none at all.

Since the takeover of the management of the water and sewage reticulation in all municipal and city councils, ZINWA has failed to live by its mandate to ensure water quality at the required quantity.

Major city water sources around the country beginning with Lake Chivero started experiencing deaths of fish and other aquatic life due to heavy pollution with such substances as poisonous ammonia, hydrogen sulphides and various amounts of organic substances and heavy metals discharged from growing industrial activities and sewage effluent discharged in a semi-purified or raw state into the lack.

Cholera has always been a major problem in Zimbabwe. In 1993, the World Health Organisation (WHO) reported 5,385 cases and 332 deaths from the waterborne disease.
In 1998 just as the Zimbabwe government had repealed the old water Act and handing the management of water to ZINWA, the disease struck again with 335 cases and 12 fatalities.

A few months later into the following year, 700 cases and 88 deaths were reported all attributed to unsafe water and poor sanitation facilities.

Just when almost everyone thought the country had gathered enough experiences in managing the disease, it struck again in 2002 with 3,125 cases and 192 deaths recorded.  This happened when the country was starting the controversial and chaotic land reform programme that crippled the economy and the health service delivery system.

Intermittent water supply and unnecessary interruptions by ZINWA in 2004 and increasing incidences of burst sewage pipes and contaminated reservoirs resulted in the death of 40 people and 900 infections.

The following year, 2005 about 14 recorded deaths and a further 203 infected during the low-risk months from May to June primarily due to critical shortages of medicines for treating the infected.

An outbreak in March last year killed 27 people when authorities failed to collect refuse in time and also failed to repair poor and burst sewage pipes remain unprepared.
Erratic reticulated water supplies by ZINWA are blamed for an outbreak in Harare that killed three people and infected another 19 in February 2007.

The cholera outbreak hit a new high in August last year when ZINWA was reported to have dumped raw sewage into Lake Chivero. The few public health facilities still functional reported treating about 900 cases of cholera cases daily.

In September 2007 severe water shortages hit Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second city, with about 400 people treated for cholera and dysentery. At the same time about 40 cases were reported in Harare as residents got water from shallow and unprotected wells as ZINWA continued to fail to supply water further compromising hygiene and sanitation.

Bulawayo has for years suffered erratic water supplies but in November 2007 severe water shortages led to over 3,000 cases of diarrhoea in the city.
In January 2008 as the hyperinflationary environment started to bite doctors and other health service delivery personnel went on strike to press for higher salaries, hundreds of cases of stomach ailments were reported with at least 10 deaths from dysentery and diarrhoea in most of Harare's high density suburbs.

Just as the City of Bulawayo had declared bankruptcy and imposed water rationing, cholera simultaneously struck the city. And for the first time, there were reports of outbreaks in rural Mashonaland East and Central provinces with at least 11 lives lost while hundreds of cases of diarrhoea were recorded in Harare's poor suburbs of Tafara, Hatcliffe Mabvuku, and Chitungwiza.

After over 500 deaths and close to 13, 000 infections, Mugabe has scored a first by exporting cholera to neighbouring South Africa and Botswana, clearly confirming that the ZANU-PF regime has been failing to manage the economy since 1993 when it lost the grip and precipitated the current crisis. (Sila Press Agency)